As
with much of Mauricio Kagel’s work, there is a strong
theatrical element in the appearance and sound of Acustica.
Even before the music takes hold, one’s eye is drawn
towards photographs of some of the wondrous inventions
used in the performance: a compressed air cylinder connected
to a bush-like stand of pipes, a trombone connected to
a bowl of water, a variety of ways of reproducing sound
from the grooves of LP records, numerous bicycle bells
mounted onto a stick, a keyboard of over-sized castanets.

Acustica, for experimental sound sources and loudspeakers is, by way of its
ambitious duration and extremes of content, one of Kagel’s
major compositions. As Werner Klüppelholz describes in
the booklet notes, the sounds “suck the listener into
a world of sound that remains mysterious to the last.” While
the staggering variety of instruments used might seem
to invite chaos, Kagel’s score has precise determination
for the individual actions which apply to each instrument.
The differences which make each performance unique are
down to the freedom in which these sounds are combined:
even the points at which the fixed elements of the instrumental
and vocal sounds on the tape are started can and do change
with every version, so that the legitimacy of having
two versions of the same piece on one CD is clearly valid.
Indeed, I have often argued for this on recordings of
pieces by John Cage, which also contain the element of
chance. The very act of committing such work to a recording
which, by its very nature, must be the same each time
it is played, contradicts the concept of this kind of
piece. This said, the fascination of experiencing such
pioneering work and bringing it to a wider audience far
outweighs such purist arguments.

While
the work going on in this piece is deadly serious, Kagel’s
sense of humour and parody, even self-parody is never
too far away. One of the pre-recorded instrumental sounds
over the loudspeakers is from his own Zehn
Märsche um den Sieg zu verfehlen, and the entire bizarre conception of such a piece has a kind of inherent
intellectual wit which goes beyond the ‘Darmstadt School’ of
dissociative atonalism. While one’s mind needs to be
free, and able to float beyond Bach, Beethoven and Brahms
for both absolute atonal composition and the kind of
music on this release, Kagel’s arrows seem deliberately
aimed at conjuring intellectual associations at all kinds
of levels. As an example, the vocal cries toward the
end of the first version of Acustica on this disc
will always bring some kind of extra-musical image to
the listener’s mind. The associations will be different,
depending on whether that listener has had experience
chasing vandals through the empty corridors of an empty
school at night, or encountered the residents of a mental
asylum or prison, or merely seen too many Hollywood horror
movies. Kagel himself wrote “I want to write music that
stimulates thought, and is supplemented by thought.” As
the imagination is poked by the sharp stick of Kagel’s
world of Acustica, it has little choice but to ‘escape
within’ to a certain extent, and by exploring our own
inner mechanisms we can be brought into our own creative
places.

Acustica is a rich source of aural stimulation through its sheer variety of
fascinating and unusual sound, and the effect it can
have on your imagination, but even nearly forty years
on the barriers of convention still need to be broken
down if the average listener is to appreciate its strength.
To begin with, a seemingly random procession of rattles,
bumps, whines and whistles assault the ear. Then, you
might hear the more familiar sound of a trumpet or an
accordion, sounding as a lonely but inaccessible friend
through the mysterious mire of noise. Voices speak, cry,
even sing, but there is rarely comfort in any recognisable
language. Strange sonorities and musical patterns intrigue,
baffle and fascinate. The isolating nature of the music
is reflected in the staging of the players. They sit,
facing their battery of instruments but away from each
other, so that their only communication is through sound: “they
should never look at each other.” Seriousness always
has an element of comedy: “...all players should act
facially like Buster Keaton”: in other words without
expression, and most certainly without smiling or laughing.
Such instructions ensure and heighten the sense of theatrical
ritual inbuilt in the instructions for playing the instruments.

This
release is very nicely presented, with the aforementioned
photos and plenty of reproductions from Kagel’s characteristically
graphic score. With the composer himself manning the
buttons for the tapes in these performances and being
part of the team of artistic directors, you can be sure
that the recordings represent as close as possible a
realisation of Kagel’s conception of how the music should
sound. The recordings are full of depth, and come as
close as possible to creating a ‘live’ sense of the performance
without having it on DVD, which might also have been
a good idea. Some of the high pitched whistling sounds
are a bit hard on the ears, reminding me a little of
the Bestiarium, which can also be quite demanding in this respect. This is something
we poor headphone listeners have to deal with sometimes – at
least it will give your tweeters a good workout. I can
but recommend you try this disc, with no guarantee that
you will like it first time around. Give it time to work
on your inner film set however, and you may find it transports
you to places you have only ever dreamt existed.

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